Patrick -
Long before I took up the game, I worked on the grounds crew one summer when I was 19 or 20. (I already liked golf, i.e. I watched it on television, but the game, I felt then, 'wasn't for someone like me'.) By the half way point of the summer they had me mowing greens and cutting pins.
My memory might be faulty, but I seem to remember how just those two functions -- along with watching hundreds of golfers of all kinds play golf holes in every way and from every spot imaginable -- got me thinking and understanding a bit about golf course "design" (I thought of it as "design" back then, not "architecture").
I do remember that, on some days, when I was feeling mischievous, I would cut most of the holes/pins in difficult spots, e.g. if there was a fairway bunker on the left side I knew that most would be trying to be on the right side of the fairway....and so I cut the pin on the right side of the green, a few paces back of the greenside bunker! (I didn't have a clue back then what my actions might mean in terms of pace of play...)
In short, I think I did learn something about golf and design working on a grounds crew -- and it was certainly an easy job to get.